I recently shared a quilt that my friend made for her granddaughters 10th birthday on my IG feed. Several of you asked for the pattern, so I am sharing my notes. It is not officially a pattern because we made it up as we went along. So here is the story behind the quilt.

My BFF, Kay has decided to make each of her grandkids a quilt for their 10th birthday. She has 9 grandkids, 1 is starting college, 2 just turned 10, and 6 under 10. You may remember when I shared Piper’s quilt a few months ago.

Savanah turned 10 last week so she got a quilt from GRANNY KAY.  Kay sewed and sewed and sewed jelly rolls together to make a big square 65″. We didn’t have an exact size of quilt to make, but just big enough to throw on the end of the bed.

Kay picked Jelly Roll strips that reminded her of Savy and the colors she liked. Next step was to join the strips together to make a long strip.

Cut one strip 65″ and then start adding. It is best to add strips alternating sides of the starting strip and alternating what direction you sew. This is not absolutely crucial but does help prevent the strips to be wavy and stretch while sewing. If you have a walking foot for your machine, this also helps. Sew 14 strips together for one half of the heart and repeat for the other half. ( I added a strip to each side of the background fabric so the heart could float a little before the pieced border- this would make strip 15)

At this point Kay and I tagged teamed the quilt. She sent me the heart strips and I added  the backgrounds and borders. You know what it is like to be under a deadline and we had to get this off to the quilter and still have time to ship it back to Kay before the birthday.

 

3 yds background, I cut the borders first so I did not have to piece them.

Shown below is 45″ x 108″. Less yardage is needed if you don’t mind piecing your borders.

 

Adding the triangles to the strips can be a bit tricky only because they are so big. The measurements for the triangles are oversized so the quilt can be squared up once it is completed. Follow your favorite technique to add the triangles.  Save the strips that are cut away when adding the triangles. These will be used for inner border.

Repeat to make the other half paying close attention to where the triangles are added. You don’t want to end up with the other half upside down, speaking from experience!!   Trim your heart! My heart  was just a tad over 60″.

Using the leftover strips from adding the triangles and subcut them into 2 1/2″ sections. Join them together and add to all 4 sides.  ( 2 borders with 30- squares and 2 borders with 32 squares)

Outer border- add top and bottom first. ( I had you cut your borders a tad longer  since you may have trimmed up your quilt a bit differently than mine)

Repeat with 2 side borders.

I cut binding also from the leftover pieced strips. This is a tad bit bulky because of all the seam allowances. I was okay with that since I thought that was a perfect ending for this quilt.

Kay puts so much meaning into everything she does and this quilt was no different. She contacted close family members and asked for a few words that described Savanah. These words and phrases were quilted throughout the quilt. ( Thank you Maggi Honeyman for working your magic.)

 

Have fun and hope this info helps when making A BIG HEART quilt.

Thanks to KAY letting me be a part of this special gift.

 

Enjoy,

-Lissa